Creating a Video-Forward Marketing Strategy to Attract More Qualified Leads

Interview with William Wickey, Senior Manager of Content and Media Strategy at LeadGenius.

For the team at LeadGenius, prioritizing video is a no-brainer.

The Berkeley-based company provides enterprise B2B marketing and sales teams with the latest lead generation tools and market insights, and if you’re thinking that sounds complicated, they’d probably agree with you. That’s why LeadGenius has found video to be the ideal medium for conveying their mission in a concise, easy-to-understand way.

But using video goes beyond just describing their product. From explainer videos to video case studies and beyond, LeadGenius has utilized the visual medium to its fullest extent. “Video isn’t a luxury anymore,” said William Wickey, Senior Manager of Content and Media Strategy. “It can’t be overlooked as a part of today’s marketing mix.”

“Video isn’t a luxury anymore. It can’t be overlooked as a part of today’s marketing mix.”

They’re avid users of the Wistia-HubSpot integration, too. And with a customer base that includes Fortune 500 companies like Google, IBM, and eBay, it’s clear that something is working.

Scaling up with video

As video became more ubiquitous over the past few years, LeadGenius knew they didn’t want to be left behind. So they started to develop a brand strategy that was more video-driven — reaching customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey became their go-to video tactic.

With video, LeadGenius was able to engage prospects and customers as they went through the various stages of the funnel by:

• Generating awareness with engaging and shareable content.
• Capturing qualified leads with gated videos.
• Using video case studies to increase conversion rates.
• Giving new customers a better onboarding experience with video FAQs.
• Increasing retention among existing customers with how-to videos.

In 2016, the company hired an in-house videographer to take on their video content full-time. “We’d worked with some great agencies in the past, but with the volume of videos we were producing, it was more cost-effective to bring the majority of our video production in-house,” William explained.

Video + marketing automation = ROI

As the output of their video content started to increase, LeadGenius began to create more types of videos, as well. Now, their video resource page highlights a plethora of strong video use cases, including whiteboard videos (used primarily for sales enablement and lead capture), interviews, and how-tos.

Additionally, the Wistia-Hubspot integration became a major incentive for LeadGenius as they developed their video strategy. Using HubSpot, LeadGenius builds form submissions and smart lists around video viewing activity, which in turn influences how leads are scored and routed in their system. Plus, heatmaps give them an at-a-glance look at how their key contacts are engaging with their videos.

“Using HubSpot, LeadGenius builds form submissions and smart lists around video viewing activity.”

They also added an above-the-fold homepage video that features prominently on their website. Not only does the video itself look classy and welcoming, but it’s also worked well from a sales perspective.

“(The video) quickly and succinctly gives visitors an idea of the pain points LeadGenius solves,” William said. And by including a CTA at the end, it’s easy for prospective customers to reach out and learn more about their offerings.

The results

In the end, the successful outcomes show just how important video has been for LeadGenius. For one, there’s the homepage video, which has proven its effectiveness with thousands of views. “With Wistia, we’re able to see that a high percentage of visitors that watch the video (6.9%) go directly to requesting a demo,” William said.

“With Wistia, we’re able to see that a high percentage of visitors that watch the video (6.9%) go directly to requesting a demo.”

They’ve also started creating more customer-facing videos. For example, a friendly thank you video has shortened their sales cycle by 11%, according to William. And LeadGenius employees in customer-facing roles have also taken advantage of video email signatures to help humanize their outreach. “Our target audience gets a lot of generic outbound emails, so video is a way to stand out and put a face to a name.” Eventually, William hopes to expand this outreach by creating customer success intros with video to replace outbound sales emails.

So far this year, the company’s most successful video has been a gated video case study with eBay. “Social proof is important for any audience, but it’s especially valuable when you’re selling to enterprise businesses,” William said.

“When a company like eBay tells the story of how LeadGenius has been able to impact their overall go-to-market strategy, that intrigues other enterprise companies — they want to know how LeadGenius can do the same thing for them.”

Find LeadGenius online and follow them on Twitter.

Want to share your success story? Shoot us an email at stories@wistia.com with a little bit about how you use video and Wistia to achieve your business goals.